


A Laurens Interlude

by bitch_I_might_be



Series: Thin Ice 'Verse [3]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alex isn't very nice to himself, Alex's mental health isn't the best, Alexander Hamilton is George Washington's Biological Son, Almost forgot to mention the happy ending woops, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, George Washington is a Dad, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, John is physically in this for like a line but he's mentioned, M/M, Washington is thinking some Thoughts in this, Washington isn't perfect but he's TRYING, very mild tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:15:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27454102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bitch_I_might_be/pseuds/bitch_I_might_be
Summary: Washington had sent John Laurens out on a supply-run with a small squad, and Alexander was less than thrilled about it.Then they got word the squad had been ambushed, Laurens had been wounded and things were not looking too good, and everything just got worse from there.Perhaps he wasn't ready to sacrifice his son's happiness for his life after all.
Relationships: Alexander Hamilton & George Washington, Alexander Hamilton/John Laurens
Series: Thin Ice 'Verse [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2004361
Comments: 4
Kudos: 110





	A Laurens Interlude

**Author's Note:**

> Or the one in which Gwash finds out that maybe murdering his son's boyfriend should they be accused of sodomy is not the solution to the systematic oppression of homosexuals.  
> This time around, a whole fic from Washington's POV because frankly, he's a lot of fun to write.  
> Hope you enjoy :)

The day had started off normal enough, Washington thought. Well, in standards of the new normal that had formed in the last couple of days, at least.

Alex was on edge, had been since he had watched John Laurens and his squad disappear over the horizon four days ago, even though it was a simple supply-mission they were embarking on. His son hadn’t quite looked at him the same way since he sent them on that mission, he was reserved and bordering on cold at times, strictly stuck to “Sir” even when there was no one else around to hear it.

Washington considered this a first taste of all the ways their relationship would crash and burn if he would ever be forced to make good on his promise to Laurens to eliminate him when their situation got too precarious. He wasn’t proud of it, but doubt had been creeping into his thoughts those past couple days. Doubt if that was to be the right course of action; it had to be, there was no other way, no other solution that wouldn’t put Alex at risk, and yet. His own generally warm feelings for the boy aside, would he be able to get rid of Laurens if his son was going to look at him like _that_ for the rest of his days? Like he had taken everything good and true in the world and cast it into the flames?

The thought alone upset his stomach. He’d considered himself prepared to be the source of his sweet boy’s greatest unhappiness, but then he looked at Alex when they were on their own, at night–he was exhausted, the dark circles like bruises around his eyes became more prominent every day that passed without word from Laurens, but he wouldn’t stop working. And when Washington tried to pry him away with gentle coaxing, most times in the early hours of the morning, Alex seemed to forget, for just a moment. He would look at him with his lost, sad eyes, the perfect picture of when he had been a boy and had come to find him after a nightmare; but then his face would close off, he would call him Sir and leave only after Washington had properly dismissed him.

He didn’t know how much more of that his poor heart could take.

The day had started off normal enough, considering what their new normal was. Then, the letter arrived.

“Sir,” Alex said, so devoid of emotion it caught the attention of most men present. “There has been an ambush.” His fingers were white around his grip on the parchment, and he stared down at it with eyes empty and unseeing.

“Laurens’ squad?” Tilghman inquired, careful. They had all noticed Alexander had been in a mood since Laurens left, of course they had, but Washington doubted they suspected anything about the nature of their relationship. The two of them were known to be extraordinarily close friends, after all.

“Yes,” Alex said. A few curses made their rounds through the tent.

“What’s he saying, did they lose any men?” someone else chimed in. Washington couldn’t be too sure who, as he wasn’t about to take his eyes off his son, who held onto the letter like a drowning man clung to a piece of drift-wood.

“He’s not saying anything,” Alex said and swallowed when his voice cracked on the last word. “The letter is from Lafayette. They lost four men, and three more were wounded. Laurens got shot. The wound is infected.”

Washington felt his veins were coated in ice. Not only had they already lost a third of their squad, three more men had gotten hurt, and Laurens- if the wound was infected, the only thing they could do was pray.

He rose from his desk and crossed the room to Alexander, laying a hand on his shoulder to press him down into his chair and provide at least a bit of comfort. With how pale around the nose the boy had gotten, he’d rather he sit down for a while.

The tent filled with despondent silence, many men averting their gaze from Alexander, some linking their fingers in a quick prayer. They all knew what an infected wound was most likely to result in. It wasn’t often they lost a fellow aide like that.

“Those are certainly not the kind of news we were hoping for,” Washington said with a gentle squeeze to his son’s shoulder. “But we can’t let this set us back. We need to dispatch a unit to get the wounded back to camp. Hamilton, did Lafayette say anything about the horses? Do they have enough to get back on their own?”

“They lost some of them,” Alex responded, voice quiet and scratchy. He cleared his throat. “But they should be able to get back, Sir.”

Washington nodded once. “Good. Tilghman, go prepare a squad, make them take a cart. I want them on the road as fast as possible, ideally before noon. Palfrey, send word to Lafayette, tell him to leave the wounded and to get everyone able to ride back to camp. Everyone else, resume your work.”

“Sir!”

The men set out to do as they were told, and with their attention elsewhere, Washington turned his focus back to his son. 

“Alex-” he said in a low voice, but Alexander jerked like he’d been struck and shrugged his hand off his shoulder.

“I’m fine, Sir,” he said, turned his back to him and picked up his quill.

Washington sighed. “Of course, son.”

It would do no good to press the issue now, especially with other people around. He returned to his own desk and concentrated on other problems for a while.

* * *

An hour after nightfall, the last man left and they were alone. Washington couldn’t recall Alexander even looking up once from his work in several hours, and while that was nothing new, it still worried him.

He fastened the tent-flaps closed and approached his son’s desk, stopping next to it and watching Alex work for a few moments. His fingers were stained dark with ink, and his dominant hand looked like it had to be cramping quite badly.

He reached out and halted the quill in its tracks, turned Alexander’s hand and gently pried it from his stiff fingers.

“I think you’ve done enough for today,” he said, softly. Alex continued to stare down at the drying ink of his unfinished missive.

Washington cupped Alexander’s jaw and turned his head to face him, his touch gentle and light and easy to pull away from. Alex looked worse than he had that morning, his face pale, the circles under his eyes all the darker for it. There was a smudge of red on his lip, where he had probably bitten it bloody in an attempt to stay focused–he really wished Alex would put a stop to that particular habit.

“Talk to me, my love,” he said. Alex kept silent for a few long moments, not meeting his eye, and then something in his face changed. His brow furrowed and his mouth pinched at the corners, his eyes glazing over with tears, and he grabbed Washington’s wrist and ripped his hand away from him like his touch had burned him.

“This is your fault,” he said, turned away like he couldn’t bear to look at him, choking down an angry sob. “You just had to send him on that mission. Anyone else could have done it, but you had to send _him_. My John.” He bit down on his lip, hard, as the tears spilled over and fell down his cheeks, dripped down his chin–Washington could almost hear his own heart crack in his chest.

He reached out for his child again, desperate to comfort him in some way, but Alex flinched away from him. “Don’t fucking touch me!”

It would have hurt him less to have a hot iron-poker driven clean through his chest. He dropped his hands to his sides and fought down the urge to just pull him close and hold him tight–that obviously wouldn’t end well.

“Alexander, dearheart, you cannot possibly think that I intended for this to happen when I assigned John to that mission. It was an ambush, no one could have known,” he said, his words coloured with despair; he hadn’t seen Alex that upset in years, and he couldn’t bear the thought of being responsible for his state.

A loud slap resonated through the tent when Alexander slammed his hand down on the table-top, hard enough it must have hurt. “I told you! I told you to keep him in camp! But you didn’t listen, because you never liked John anyway, because you hate that I love him, and now he will _die_!” His sobs broke from deep in his chest, wet and painful, and shook his whole body with the force of them, his clenched fists trembling in his lap. “I hope you are at least happy now.”

Washington didn’t know what to do. What to say. If there was anything he could do to make this right, it lay beyond his grasp. He’d never had such a deep, frightening sense of helplessness before.

Watching his boy break down like that, his chest felt like it was split open down the middle, and someone was digging around its contents, ripping them out and letting them shatter on the floor.

Alexander scrubbed the back of his hand over his face and stood, breath still hitching in his throat and tears falling freely, and made for the exit.

Washington moved as soon as he did, and he caught one of his wrists and turned him back around to him. Alex glared up at him through his grief and tried to jerk his arm out of his grasp, but this time, he wouldn’t let him. He couldn’t let him be alone like that.

“Just leave me be,” he said, anger ebbing away to reveal nothing but exhaustion and hurt in his eyes.

Washington shook his head slowly. “No, my heart. You know I can’t.”

Just like that, Alexander crumbled apart before his very eyes. He wept like he would never know happiness again, and his legs shook as though they had trouble supporting his weight; Washington gathered his boy close to his chest and sunk to the ground with him, settling them against the wooden panelling of a desk, and pulled him into his lap so he could hold him tight. So he could protect him from the real and imaginary monsters of the world like he had since Alexander was a boy. So he could cling to the illusion he could be enough to keep his son together.

Alex sobbed into his chest, his fingers digging into his own arm so harshly, Washington was afraid he would draw blood. He closed his own hand over Alexander’s vice-like grip and worked it off, clasping those fingers in his own instead.

“None of that,” he chided gently and pressed a kiss to his son’s hair.

“God, it- it _hurts_ so bad, Papa,” he choked out between heaving breaths.

“I know, dearheart, I know,” he cooed and rubbed soothing circles into Alex’s back.

While he was trying to calm Alexander, he prayed. He prayed for John Laurens to survive that infection, and he prayed he would never have to see his sweet boy in so much pain again–and he promised himself that he wouldn’t let himself become the source of that kind of hurt, no matter what.

* * *

The unit Tilghman had put together arrived back to camp with the wounded four days later, and by some miracle, Laurens’ fever had broken on the way. He had been shot in the stomach, but it seemed something was watching out for him that day–the bullet hadn’t hit anything vital. With the sufficient amount of bed-rest, the boy would make a full recovery.

Alexander’s smile when John was able to tell him that himself could have outshone the sun, not that Washington got to see it very long, as his son had apparently made it his mission to match the number of tears he spilled for the man with kisses pressed to his lips. Laurens didn’t complain.

If that whole situation taught him one thing, it was that he wouldn’t be able to take Laurens away from Alexander, not after he had seen what it would do to him. Not after he had held his child through body-rocking sobs, bursts of anger, screaming and crying and begging. He wouldn’t be able to bring himself to order his execution if they were to be discovered.

No, for this to work out, Washington would have to find a way to protect them both.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
